MacBook Pro 16'' popping sound

Hi. Sorry for the long post before. Long time Mac user and before my 16 Mackbook Pro, was using my 2007 Macbook Pro and 2007 era IMAC to record into Logic through a digital mixer. I've been recording on computers/mac and PC, since the 90s, so none of this stuff is new to me, and my stuff has been stable before the 16 MBP. My problems were complicated by the fact that the audio problems I've been having were ONLY on the Macbook Pro 16 running Catalina.(And Big Sur). I was lucky enough to have other computers and hardware to troubleshoot, but if I didn't have other equipment to rule things out, theres no way I would have been able to figure any of this out. It turns out that there were about 4-6 different contributing factors, some of which where Apple/OS related, and some were not. The bottom line is that the 16 MBPro didn't like the USB/Firewire soundcard Combo that was in my Digital mixer. (Full-size X32). A firmware update to the soundcard appeared to help resolve the issue, but then I started getting random dropouts. Random as in 1 dropout after 20 minutes of recording. Troubleshooted this for 2 weeks before I swapped out the sound card for a USB only card. (Got rid of the USB/Firewire combo card. (X-UF).

The USB/Firewire card was working fine with my older macs, including a newer Macbook Pro running Mohave (13 2017).

For some reason, the card, even after a firmware update, doesn't like either 64 bit drivers, or something else with the new MBPro. After swapping out the card, I've been unable to reproduce the problem, and am so happy the issue appears to be driver related with my soundcard. I guess the lesson here for people having issues with 16 MBPros and having audio issues is to budget for new hardware/sound cards, esp if they are older. The fact that I was not able to reproduce the problem with my older macs had me convinced the issue was with the Macbook Pro. It turns out some older soundcards may not work well with either Catalina or something else in the MBPro 16.

i have the popping sound happening on my NEW macbook pro 16" too. everything was working perfectly, then all of a sudden now whenever i have any sort of audio playing, I have crackling and popping. It happens with youtube, it happens with apple music, anything audio.

I've tried the fixes people have said on the internet, but nothing is helping. How and when can we fix this issue? Did i waste thousands of dollars on what is turning out to be a bad computer?

Is anyone still experiencing this issue? Running latest macOS Catalina 10.5.15

I bought my MacBook Pro 16 inch back in February and noticed the popping sound issue after a couple of weeks while editing video on premiere pro.

This happens frequently while starting, stopping and skipping anything that has sound (i.e Premiere Pro, youtube, apple music etc...)

I read that a future update will fix this but that was in an article from December 2019... I'm getting impatient and wonder if I should send it to the store to have it fixed/replaced. I've also read that some users replaced their MacBook a few times before getting one without this issue which is highly unacceptable to deal with.

Did both

1- restart the macbook pro , but when you work it will be annoying sometimes

2- open activity monitor and quit the audioid it works just fine

Nothing fixed. I recently gave my MBP 16" for repairs as it got dead while working, when I received, I found the speaker has an issue.

Apple India service centres are pathetic. They do not care about the customer. During the time of covid, I was working from my native place and the nearest apple support centre is 100 miles away.

Same issue here. I am on 10.15.7 and the crackling and popping annoying sounds started happen with that update, for what I have noticed. How come an entire community of users of this very expensive machine report this error and Apple is not putting the right emergency time to fix it right away? It is very uncomfortable to make web meetings listening this audio crackling , even when watching videos on youtube, on both Firefox and Chrome web browsers. Apple, please fix this issue ASAP!

i bought this machine the day it came out and apple still haven’t fixed this issue.

i’m going through the process of returning it to apple now and have asked for a refund under consumer law.

this, amongst other software or hardware issues such as sudden restarts, finding out that icloud drive messed up my hard drive and having had to wipe and clean install the OS three time now means i’m done.

ive had the speakers replaced with logic and tried the 48khz thing which works but causes other issues.

ive read that consumer law in the uk that if something isn’t ‘fit for purpose’ then you can get a refund within 6 years.

has anyone got any advice?

cheers.

Experiencing similar issue on Catalina 10.15.4. Listening music on Youtube in Chrome and periodically hearing the popping sounds (every 5 minutes or so). Tried Safari - same issue. Couldn't manually reproduce it by playing the same music. Seems to happen somewhat randomly.

I have this issue with my Macbook pro 2020, 13 inch , It appears from time to time , there is two solutions:

1- restart the macbook pro , but when you work it will be annoying sometimes

2- open activity monitor and quit the audioid it works just fine

I hope apple solve this issue as soon as possible I trust them ..

I have the same issue on my 2020 MacBook Pro 13', I think its definitely unacceptable for the price we paid for these machines, expecting the best, but getting a faulty device. And its thousands of people too- definitely not the quality I was expecting. Im disappointed in my purchase and am looking into returns, and going to get a different device.

I want to add to this thread. I bought the Macbook Pro 16'' to be a working video editing machine with Premiere Pro. Not only is there playback lag, but sometimes the machine will stutter on a few frames continuously and won't stop unless I click into another application .

The sound crackling is becoming more and more persistent. When fast forwarding in Premiere Pro, the speakers will pop rhythmically, even for nature sound files in playback.

The kill audio core trick you find online is no way a probable fix because the issue always happens when editing in Premiere.

I've sent it to an Apple store and they've said it is not a hardware issue. And if then it is a software issue, how has it not been corrected yet??? This is too much of a damper for the price we pay for this machine! I'm bringing my machine to another repair shop tomorrow and seeing if they can open the thing up and just fix it

Lucky you, I went through a similar process with my Audio Board being replaced when I shipped it off and my top case assembly being replaced at an Apple Store but the issue still persists no differently from before and they are now refusing to do any further work on it as they believe that it's normal behaviour.

Same issue for me after upgrading to BigSur. It is unacceptable to have this kind of issue for this very expensive laptop. Apple needs to improve it customer relationship management. It is a shame!

I have tried editing the MIDI settings, tried restarting coreaudiod, the issue persists. I did not have this issue, started experiencing it after and update on MacOS Catalina. I hoped it would be fixed with BigSur, but same situation.

So.... What you're saying is that you traced the problem to a bad cable or mixer, problem rectified and your MacBook is working well after you fixed the peripherals? Nice job on the troubleshooting, I understand the pain.

Apple, FIX THE PROBLEM! you have hundred if not thousands of people that have complained about this not working for years and it's still going on. What is it going to take to get some assistance on this? I complained about this earlier, but some dweeb decided that it was more appropriate to delete my post than respond to it. We have several on this thread alone that are complaining, mine has been having this issue for OVER A YEAR!

This issue has been ongoing for years and Apple has continued to ignore it. Oh its software related we can't fix that. Really? If you can't fix it who is? Big Sur upgrade and it returned immediately.